Vehicular Injuries As A Death Hazard

Injuries occur with all types of transportation but when it comes to the numbers road traffic accidents hold accountability for the majority across the globe. In developed countries, they are the most common cause of death below the age of 50 years, and in young men this trend is even more marked. The pattern and type of injury,both fatal and nonfatal, varies quite a lot depending on if the victim is an occupant in the vehicle, a pedal cyclist, a motorcyclist or a pedestrian.

The Dynamics of Vehicular Injury

But due to the huge advances made in the transportation industry such as the development of the truck scales Australia we are starting to see a decline in the numbers. And there are a number of elementary physical facts help to explain the complex pattern of traffic injuries, especially those sustained by the occupants of a vehicle. Tissue injury is actually caused by a change in the rate of movement. A constant velocity however fast, has no effect whatsoever on the outcome of the incident which is evident from space travel. It is definitely the change of rate that is the cause of trauma – that is, the increase or decrease in the velocity.

Change of rate is conveniently measured in ‘gravities’ or ‘G forces’. The amount that a human body can tolerate depends greatly on the direction in which the force acts. Deceleration of the order of 300G can be sustained without injury and even 2000G can be survived for a short time, if it acts at right angles to the long axis of the body. The frontal bone might be able to resist a force of 800G without acquiring a fracture and the mandible might be able to withstand 400G, and the same goes for the thoracic cage.

During changes in velocity for example of a truck that has been weighed using the axle group weighing, the damage that occurs to the tissue will depend upon the force applied per unit area, just as a sharp knife penetrates more easily than a blunt one used with the same force. Right here is a perfect axle group weighing that will suit your weighed needs.

If a car driver is brought to rest from 80km/hour by striking 10cm2 of his head on the windscreen frame, the damage will be vastly more severe than if the same decelerative force was spread over 500cm2 of a safety belt. Between 60 and 80 per cent of vehicular crashes such as (either into a fixed structure or into another vehicle) are fatal and are mostly cause by sudden deceleration.

Another six per cent are impacts with the back of the vehicle which caused the vehicle and it’s occupants to be accelrated. Looking at the remaining quota half of them are sideswipes and the rest ‘roll-overs’. In the common frontal impact, there is never instant arrest of the vehicle, even when it runs into a massive, immovable structure. The vehicle itself deforms from the front so that there is always a deceleration distance and time, albeit small. In fact, much of the manufacturers’ design research now goes into making deliberate provision for the crumpling or ‘concertinaing’ of the front and rear of the car, leaving a central rigid cell that comprises the passenger compartment. The object is to extend the stopping distance and time, so that the G value acting on the occupants is reduced.